


Sweet Lady

by immistermercury



Series: A Night at the Opera [4]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, M/M, Second Date, Thames, but like, freddie just wants to be loved, in a cute and fluffy way, it's less of a date and more of a drunken hook up honestly, jim does give freddie those flowers and he LOVES them, jim just wants to love him, riverside kisses, set in the 80s with lots of references to the 70s, the rainbow theatre, they would totally get married here and now bc they in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 01:43:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immistermercury/pseuds/immistermercury
Summary: All the news stories, the rumours, the speculations, were enough to make anyone doubt themselves. As soon as Jim mentioned the predicament to friends, he heard stories of raucous lovers and sleazy affairs and the man, enticing as a siren, around which they all revolved. The centre of a sordid circle, they’d told him. Five lovers a night, they’d told him. Better keep away, they’d told him.And hadn’t he wished that it had been that easy?





	Sweet Lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supersonicmen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supersonicmen/gifts).



> It's my best friend's nineteenth!!!! Lindsey I love you so much that I tried to write vaguely canon-compliant fiction. I hope your day is going wonderfully! I love you endlessly xoxoxoxoxo

Walking down Cheyne Walk, Freddie felt so content. He linked his fingers with Jim’s, squeezed ever-so-slightly, and shot a pretty smile up at his lover. It was moments like this where he was his most peaceful, where the rush of life, of travelling, of being in a thousand places and in a thousand ears and on a thousand tongues and on a thousand screens, finally seemed to subside. It was times like now where he could be calm, not have to worry about someone springing from nowhere, armed with questions and tasks and a never-ending to-do list that always seemed to land in his hand.

 

Maybe Freddie was getting ahead of himself, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care that he was getting lost in the fantasy again, the one that materialised for every single one of his romantic escapades. He fell in love quickly, and he was intense: he gave so much, but expected so much in return, and some people weren’t prepared for his power.

 

Years of never getting the second call, waiting by the phone until dawn, being stood up at bars and going home miserably to a house too big for one, Freddie had begun to give up on love. It was never easy, and it was never clean, and it never left him with the content that people described it with in books and in movies.

 

This time, he’d had the second call. The first meeting had been a whirlwind, a mess of drunken kisses and giggles behind stiff doors and whiskey and secrets at four in the morning. It had culminated in Freddie walking the stranger home, ever the gentlemen, and writing his number in that bastardised cursive with the hope that maybe this time, this could be the one.

 

And he’d waited by the phone and he’d hung around all the right spots in the bars that the guy frequented and he dolled himself up all pretty every single evening for the hope of seeing those eyes again. Each night he’d lost a little more hope, lost the hope that the man was still interested, that he would want a reprise of that evening that they’d stolen away from the rest of the world.

 

Yet here he was, walking along the Thames with a bunch of yellow freesias in one hand, not knowing quite the words to express his gratitude for the man beside him and yet feeling as though he were about to explode from happiness.

 

As Jim glanced over the man beside him, he smiled to him. He carefully disconnected their fingers in favour of wrapping an arm completely around his waist, closing what little distance there had been between them. He’d spent the longest time debating whether to call, whether to arrange another meeting, strategically avoiding bars in fear of seeing him again.

 

All the news stories, the rumours, the speculations, were enough to make anyone doubt themselves. As soon as he mentioned the predicament to friends, he heard stories of raucous lovers and sleazy affairs and the man, enticing as a siren, around which they all revolved. The centre of a sordid circle, they’d told him. Five lovers a night, they’d told him. Better keep away, they’d told him.

 

And hadn’t he wished that it had been that easy?

 

A man so disinterested in the disreputable underbelly of the London gay scene, so disinterested in the intricacies of the sex life of a rockstar, so disinterested in selling himself for the night of a lifetime. A man so diametrically opposed to each little element of the man tucked under his arm, a man who preferred to not drink on work nights, a man who still sometimes wished that he could do regularity, a wife and two kids and a cat.

 

There had been an energy that he was undeniably attracted to. He’d never bothered going to a concert before, not favouring bankrupting himself for the sake of a headache, but when he’d seen “Queen: Live at the Rainbow” splashed across a poster on the tube, he couldn’t pretend to be disinterested. A return to the theatre before its closure, it had stated. One more round for old times’ sake, for the nostalgia. Limited tickets available.

 

The room had been dark as he’d walked in, but Freddie, covered in diamantes - Jim knew he was rich, but he couldn’t be rich enough for them to be diamonds - sparkled in the low light. It was like a seventies revival, a few hours to relive the decade of a lifetime, to admire the awful fashion choices that they’d all chosen to make.

 

Freddie had the common sense to pull on jeans and a jacket afterwards, over that - leotard? Onesie? Unitard? Jim laughed to himself. Really, what the fuck was he wearing?

 

Freddie looked up, jacket shifting a little and giving Jim an eyeful of sparkles again. He couldn’t help himself; he was laughing immediately, trying not to offend Freddie - he admired the man for wearing it, he really did! Freddie, next to the bridge twined in lights, was the prettiest picture possibly in the whole world, but he still couldn’t believe that he was falling for a man with such abominable fashion taste.

 

“What are you laughing at, my dear?” Freddie’s voice was amused, but Jim thought he could detect perhaps just a hint of self-consciousness. He stopped there, under the lamplight, and kissed him. 

 

He felt a laugh against his lips as Freddie melted into the embrace, every romantic dream he’d ever had bursting to the forefront of his mind as Jim picked him up and sat him on the low wall. “I’m laughing at you.” He murmured as he pulled away, letting his fingers trail over the sparkles. “At whatever the fuck this that you’re wearing.”

 

Freddie laughed too, and Jim wanted to do all sorts of silly things like buy him cocktails and kittens and puppies and maybe, just maybe, he would marry him there on the spot. “It’s a leotard!” Freddie’s voice was incensed, and Jim couldn’t help but grin. “I’ll have you know that this was the very height of stagewear in the seventies, darling.”

 

“For everyone?” Jim moved closer again and Freddie’s hand slid up his chest. “Or just for you, my love?” He asked playfully, dropping a kiss on the end of his nose. 

 

“I was very fashion-focused, you know.” Freddie tilted his head up for another kiss, which Jim gratefully received. “I still am, my dear. There just isn’t quite so much satin anymore.” He grinned when Jim bit at his bottom lip. “But I’ve got jeans that make my ass to die for.”

 

Jim groaned, still half-laughing, but distracted by the kisses being trailed over his jaw. “They told me you’d be trouble.” He let his hands rest on Freddie’s waist, squeezing lightly.

 

“And trouble I will be.” Freddie smirked, hands slipping under the hem of Jim’s shirt. “Why don’t you come home with me? The house is awfully quiet without you there.”

 

Jim grinned, taking his time to look first over the dark waters rolling before them, and then to look at the way the streetlight drew patterns on Freddie’s face. “You know, my love, I think I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone wondering hey, where's fluorescent - I'm sorry kids, I didn't read my own plan well enough and I ended up getting 2000 words deep into completely the wrong chapter (and it's so cute but it doesn't fit the storyline and I'm angry because I still want to share it with you guys UGH). Next chapter will hopefully be up tomorrow!


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